New research from Key Retirement Solutions suggests that homeowners aged 65-plus have lost £7.185 billion in the past three months.

This is equivalent to around £1,236 each.

The equity release adviser says that retired homeowners are more than £25 billion down since September 2010 when total property value was worth £775 billion.

The index reported just three regions out of the 11 covered saw increases with eight suffering declines.

Over-65 homeowners in London and Scotland were the biggest losers seeing average loses of £5,937 and £5,804 with over-65s in the East of England suffering losses of £3,460.

The only gains were recorded in Wales, the North East and West Midlands with the Welsh the biggest winners seeing increases of £836 on average.

Key Retirement’s figures show a third of property equity is owned by pensioners in London and the South East of England – in London over-65s own property without any mortgages worth £125.03 billion while in the South East pensioners own £121.76 billion of property without mortgages.

Dean Mirfin , group director at Key Retirement Solutions, said: “The housing market remains extremely volatile with the losses in the past three months showing that the recovery is still a long way off. People are starting to realise that waiting for recovery is not a viable strategy when considering equity release.